Waddling, Wandering and Waving: Literary Chinese Ideophones and the Motion Semantic Grid

Abstract This study uses the motion semantic grid (Ibarretxe-Antuñano, 2019) to analyze the semantics of literary Chinese ideophones that depict motion (N = 313). I offer strategies for handling missing values in the Grid and enhancements specific to Chinese data, such as the inclusion of semantic radicals. Utilizing multiple correspondence analysis ( mca ), I identify the most salient elements and distances between items. The findings reveal that (1) all first-level components in the Grid play a role, e.g. figure, ground, motion, path, manner, cause, event extension ; (2) of second-level components Animacy, Quanta, Basic level, Motor-pattern, Semantic radical, Motion, Direction, and Aspect contribute most to the first three latent dimensions; (3) motion ideophones cluster in salient groups. This study confirms the motion semantic grid’s utility for studying motion ideophones but highlights the need for language-specific adaptations and strategies for handling missing values absent from the original proposal.